NORTH KINGSVILLE — Tall tales spun in Ashtabula County about penguins and dragons caught the attention of judges in the Cleveland-based Young Writers and Illustrators Contest.

Sponsored by PBS television station WVIZ, the contest is open to northeast Ohio students in kindergarten through third grade. The contest has been held 15 years, and students in Bonnie Bernato’s third-grade class at North Kingsville Elementary have entered books every year.

Bernato, who is wrapping up her 34th year of teaching, said writing, illustrating and creating a book is a multidisciplinary activity that can help students gain skills in several state language-arts indicator areas. But it doesn’t come easy.

“It takes a lot of work,” Bernato said. “It takes several months to do it successfully.”

Students create a book of not more than 350 words and at least five pages. They not only research and write the story, but also they type it into a word processor, create book pages and then illustrate those pages with their own drawings. They also create a cover for their books and bind the pages of the books.

Bernato used classroom reading and computer lab time to work on the project, which started back in January when she challenged students to come up with stories and write them. They could write either fiction, nonfiction or poetry.

For Sophia Flick, reality wrote her story: “My Number 1 Christmas Present.” Sophia’s father had spent a year in Iraq with the Army National Guard and surprised his family when he arrived home while they were having dinner at a restaurant. Sophia was talking to her father on a cell phone from the restaurant when she turned around and saw her father standing behind her.

Bernato said students like Sophia, who wrote nonfiction books, often find inspiration in family experiences or their pets.

The fiction authors turned to their interests and imagination.

Emily Green, who won an honorable mention in the contest, decided to write about dragons but with a twist. Her book about two dragons is a tale of a friendly dragon, named Wolf, who adopts a dog he names Dragon.

Trent Dufour also received an honorable mention. His book, “I Wish I Was Big,” is about a penguin.

“I like penguins,” said Trent, who, despite his book’s title, says he’s content with his stature.

The students say doing the illustrations can be especially challenging because all it takes is one little mistake to spoil a page. Students must create original, hand-drawn illustrations; they can’t use clip art.

It’s a big job for both the students and Bernato, who this year had to direct and edit 24 books.

Sophia Flick said they frequently heard the same words from their teacher as they went to her for assistance: “‘I’m only one person.’ That was my line,” Bernato said.

She plans to teach for two more years and, although it’s a big task, also plans to have those future classes enter the contest. Like most things in life, the biggest challenge is getting them to take that first step toward becoming authors.

“They really seem to embrace the project once they get started,” Bernato said.

She said students in her classes have received several honorable mentions over the contest’s history, and her son, who participated in it, went to the national contest level.

“We’re still waiting for someone (from the class) to become a famous author someday,” she said.

A Pymatuning Valley third-grader, Jessica Jenick, won second place in this year’s contest for her book, “Elton and the Bully.” A story about Jessica will be in this Sunday’s Neighborhood section.

Online: www.wviz.org/education/rr